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Sandoval wisely vetoes Medicaid-for-all bill

Gov. Brian Sandoval vetoed a measure that would have offered a state-sponsored health insurance option to all residents regardless of income.

If the Republican governor had signed it, Nevada would have become the first state to attempt a Medicaid-for-all approach to health insurance.

In his three-page veto message released Friday night, Sandoval praised the sponsor of the bill for “creativity” in attempting to design a healthcare option for the state’s 2.9 million people, but he ultimately reasoned that there were too many unanswered questions about how the program would work.

He wrote that the legislation was “an undeveloped remedy to an undefined problem” — and that it didn’t get proper scrutiny before it was passed in a short time frame.

The bill was short — just four pages — and its sponsor, Democratic Assemblyman Mike Sprinkle, acknowledged it would require a lot of work if it had become law. That’s why, Sprinkle said, he put an implementation date of January 2019 within the bill’s text.